KRISHNA CORIOLIS#1: Slayer of Kamsa Read Free Page B

dressed in colourful and enticing festive garb. The leering grin that twisted his face betrayed his utter lack of respect for any regal protocol.
    Even Vasudeva felt his jaw clench as the prince stared with rude intensity at an attractive woman amidst the throng of richly clad nobility only two tables down. That was Pritha, Vasudeva’s sister, who had travelled here from her home in Hastinapura. Her husband Pandu had been unable to attend the function due to ill health, but Pritha’s presence was meant as an official seal to show the great Kuru nation’s solidarity with and approval for the peace pact.
    Vasudeva’s hands clenched into fists as he struggled to restrain his warring emotions. What manner of beast was a man who would storm thus into a feast hosted by his father in bloody armour, dash down his loyal kin-soldiers and insult a noblewoman who was under the protection of his father’s hospitality? Often had he heard the tales whispered along the length of the Yamuna, among the many clans and sub-clans of the Yadava nation. It was said that Kamsa was a rakshasa begot upon his mother Padmavati by a demon who assumed the form of his father Ugrasena. Vasudeva was a rational man, and not given to superstition. Yet, looking at those almost-translucent, greyish-blue eyes that glared at the gathered nobles and chieftains with such unbridled hostility, he could almost believe the gossip. Violence exuded from Kamsa like waves of heat from a boiling kettle.
    Then Kamsa’s gaze sought out and settled upon Vasudeva. And his entire aspect changed so suddenly, it was almost as if he had seen something quite different from merely the king of the Suras.
    As if he’s seeing some terrible foe rather than just me standing here, overdressed in my ceremonial robes, Vasudeva thought. Kamsa took a step back, then another, and Vasudeva thought he saw something akin to ... fear? ... cross the prince’s otherwise handsome face. Kamsa’s magnificently wrought arms rippled with muscle beneath the chainmail armour he wore.
    Vasudeva was caught off-guard by the look on Kamsa’s face. What had the feared reaver of the great and powerful Andhaka clan to fear from a simple, peace-loving man like him?
    The stunned silence in the hall gave way to surprised whispering as the assemblage took note of Kamsa’s strange reaction to seeing Vasudeva. At the same moment, the Haddi-Hathi raised his trunk and issued a bleating call that oddly echoed Kamsa’s own mixture of awe and terror. The sound served to snap the Andhaka prince out of his daze.
    The look on his face changed at once. The fearful, awestruck expression dissipated and was replaced instantly by a mask which was blank and inscrutable but to those who had already seen or worn it themselves – it was the mask a warrior wore when he prepared to launch an attack on the battlefield, severing his normal human self from the battle machine he was about to become.
    But it was the glimpse into Kamsa’s naked inner self that caught Vasudeva’s attention. Yes, that look had been unmistakably an expression of fear. He was still pondering the meaning of that expression when Kamsa issued a loud curse, raised a barbed spear, and flung it with a roar of fury – directly at Vasudeva’s breast.

    three

    Devaki shrieked as her brother threw the spear at her betrothed. Her planned union with Vasudeva was yet to be formally solemnized; but she already thought of him as her husband-in- waiting. There was no man she would be happier to unite with in matrimony than the chief-king of the Sura Yadavas. That their joining would help further the cause of peace between the neighbouring nations was incidental to her. She had always been a woman led by her instinct and spirit, and she knew that she would love Vasudeva deeply, indeed had come to feel great affection and admiration for him already, after only a few meetings; and that mattered more to her than politics and statecraft.
    She had watched with rising